Drive by Daniel Pink

Best For: Current and aspiring leaders or anyone working on finding their own motivation

Favorite Quote: “Mastery is an asymptote. You can approach it. You can home in on it. You can get really, really. really close to it. But, like Cézanne, you can never touch it. Mastery is impossible to realize fully.”

Notes: This book has a simple concept which it communicates really well. Drive is internal. Using carrots and sticks to get people to do what you want may have some short-term benefits but it can never be used to get people to do their best work (in many fields anyway). It is a little pop-science in its delivery and I did skim a few sections (which is unheard of for me) due to some repetition but it was an easy and overall informative read. I would recommend it for people in and wanting to get in leadership roles. The middle chapters 4, 5, & 6 on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose are worth a read at the least.

On Deck: I’m taking a quick detour before I get into Social to read The Geometry of Wealth by Brian Portnoy. Brian’s book has been highly recommended by the Twitter circles I travel in so it has been in my queue for a long time. A weeks ago he actually reached out to me on Twitter about an event in Chicago so it has shot up the priority chart. Let that be known, if you have written a book and want me to read it, just reaching out is an effective strategy.

Bookshelf

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.